


Physicality: Turnabout is Fair Play

by shaenie



Series: Adapting to Physicality [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BDSM, Dom/sub, Impact Play, Side story to the Physicality -verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 06:26:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8738290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaenie/pseuds/shaenie
Summary: If Tony had been told that morning that he'd be subbing for Phil Coulson later that night, he would have laughed his ass off.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a side story to they Adapting to Physicality universe. You don't really have to have read that to get something out of this, but it would probably make more sense that way. Set pre-Remedial Physicality.

Tony is making a prosciutto and gouda sandwich in the penthouse at two o’clock in the morning, which means he’s fairly confident that he’s alone, which further means he hadn’t bothered to put on any clothes. He’d left Steve sleeping in his newly cleared out mini-room after easing him through fucking him for the first time, and Steve had barely had enough control over his legs to get him into his little room under his own power. Tony had invited him to feel free to sleep in the bed, but he understands why Steve’s room feels safer for him than Tony’s bed. 

He’d been a little afraid Steve was going to freeze up on him when it came to fucking Tony, until he’d seen his face flicker through several emotions before settling on uncertainty, but with a particular thrust to his jaw that means he’s determined to at least try. And it had been good. It had been fast, because Steve had never had his cock inside another person’s body in his life, and he’d been half out of his mind even as he was clinging frantically onto to the instructions Tony was giving him, just at the raw and thrilling newness of it.

It had gone well. He’s moderately sure that Steve will be willing, even eager, to try it again, with a little more force to it next time. Tony wouldn’t have been all that disappointed if Steve hadn’t been able to manage it, but he likes being fucked, and he’s pretty sure that Steve is going to like fucking people at some point in the future, people who are not Tony, people that he chooses because he wants to fuck them, and not because he had come to Tony very nearly out of control. What Tony wants is for Steve to have all the options that Steve is capable of once he no longer needs Tony to keep him on an even keel. And Tony thinks he’s going to be able to do that for Steve. 

He’s licking spicy mayo off the knife when Coulson says, “Late night?” and scares Tony half out of his mind. Luckily, it hadn’t been a sharp knife.

“Christ, I’m going to put a bell on you. On all of you, for fucks sake. Even Steve sneaks up on me, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t doing it on purpose. The rest of you get some sort of sick thrill out of it, I’m certain of it.” Tony slices his sandwich violently in half, and slings the knife into the sink without bothering to be concerned with the loud clatter it makes, just to reiterate his annoyance.

Coulson’s lips quirk up in that way that seems to almost be a smile without ever quite making it all the way there. He’s wearing slightly more than Tony, with the addition of a pair of gray sleeping pants that fit snug and look soft from many washings. 

Tony is very conscious of two things. 

The first is that Coulson has a far better body that Tony would have ever guessed, even though he’d speculated that he had to be just a little bit cut under the suits, at least. He is, in fact, more than a little bit cut. He’s all lean, long slabs of muscle and absolutely no padding between muscle and skin to lessen the stark contrast of those muscles to the way he looks when fully dressed in a suit, which is all Tony has ever seen him in.

The second thing is, he would never have come out naked to make a sandwich if he’d thought even for a second that anyone else might come up here at this time of the night. He’s extremely conscious of the scarred and naked flesh of his chest and the metal set into it, and doesn’t generally like to show it off. The arc reactor doesn’t bother him as much as the scars, really. The arc reactor is a marvel of modern science.

The scars are battlefield surgery scars, and are red and angry and ugly.

Coulson says, “I have a question, and you can tell me to go to hell if you want to.” His voice is more or less neutral, but there’s something about his eyes that doesn’t look neutral at all.

“Do you want half of this?” Tony asks, which seems to take Coulson aback for a long moment, and then he merely nods. Tony grabs him a plate and transfers half the sandwich to it, and Tony does not go back into his bedroom to grab clothes. He sits naked at his own kitchen bar, because it’s his furniture, and if anyone had a problem sitting someplace where his naked ass has been, they can go straight to hell. Coulson joins him at the bar, merely sets the plate on it, and gestures toward the bar.

“I’m going to make myself a drink, if you don’t mind. Do you want something?” Coulson asks.

“Gin and tonic, the lime is in the mini fridge behind the bar,” Tony says, because he sort of has a feeling about what Coulson wants to talk to him about, and the fact that Coulson had accepted his half a sandwich makes him more or less certain of it, so he probably needs a drink.

Coulson spends three minutes behind the bar, and comes out with a perfectly made gin and tonic, the lime straddling the lip of the tumbler, and what looks like scotch, neat, for himself.

Coulson slides Tony’s glass over two him, leaves a seat between them, because that’s the only real way to talk face to face at Tony’s bar/table/kitchen eating area, because there are ten chairs crowded around it. He’d had three when the Avengers had moved into the tower. He’d had to order more once he realized they were going to eat breakfast, at least, nearly every day together. Even with ten, they occasionally have enough guests that they need more chairs.

Tony takes a bite of his sandwich, and is immediately transported with joy directly through his tastebuds. He’s going to owe Natasha a full body massage for this. That had been the deal, not that he’d needed a deal to get the chance to massage Natasha, but when she’d found out he was actually certified (yes, he is, and he uses it way more than anyone would think), she had promised to stock his fridge with yummy food that he could make himself with minimal effort if he would promise her a massage. From anyone else, Tony would have bet that the massage part was a come on. From Natasha, he honestly isn’t sure. It makes him nervous and excited in equal measures. 

He chews happily for several seconds, and then takes a sip of the gin and tonic. “Okay, so what do you want to ask me?” He says, when his mouth is empty.

“You’re sleeping with Steve,” Coulson says, but that is not a question. It is not anything Tony has told anyone, and he’s honestly not sure that Steve has told anyone either, but it’s clear from Coulson tone that he knows that much already. “The question is, are you topping Steve?” Coulson takes a bite of his sandwich, and looks pleasantly surprised.

“Why are you asking?” Tony asks, watching Coulson sip his scotch.

They lock gazes for several long, intense seconds, and Tony doesn’t really need to know why Coulson is asking.

“Is it exclusive?” Coulson asks.

“No, it’s just something we’re doing to help him get his feet under him in this century,” Tony says, truthfully, but vaguely. “But yes, that includes topping him.”

Coulson takes another sip from his tumbler of scotch, and sits for just a moment, clearly thinking. “If I invited him to come to bed with me, would you be offended?”

“Not in the slightest,” Tony says. “Honestly, the more people Steve sleeps with, the better off he’ll be as far as his headspace goes. His general headspace, I mean, not his sexual headspace.”

“But he’s a sub,” Coulson says, and again, it’s not a question.

Tony takes a bite of his sandwich, and arches both brows at Coulson. “I haven’t had him long enough to want to put him firmly into that territory, but if I were going to bet on it, I’d give long odds that he is. Right now, he’s mostly just a bottom that does a few subby things because they give him comfort.”

“And you? Are you a top, or are you a dominant?” Coulson asks, catching Tony’s gaze again with that intensity.

“I’m a dominant and a sadist, for the most part,” Tony says. “Steve doesn’t have much in the way of pain kinks, Coulson. If that’s what you’re after, you’d be better off looking elsewhere.”

“If I need to exercise my sadism, I generally do it with Clint,” Coulson says, surprising Tony a little, because he’d suspected Clint and Coulson sometimes had sex, but he hadn’t pinged Clint as a sub.

“Is he a switch?” Tony asks, genuinely curious.

Coulson does that thing again where his face doesn’t change, but he’s somehow managing to project a smile anyway. “He is, a tricky switch, very high maintenance, but totally worth it. But we’re casual. He sleeps with Natasha almost as much as he sleeps with me. Just lately, Thor has taken up watching the two of them together.” Now the corners of Coulson’s lips do actually quirk up. “So, if Steve, then what about Bruce?” he asks, and Tony’s mouth goes dry around a bite of sandwich and he has to choke it down and then chase it with a long swallow of his drink.

“Bruce is something else. If he ever wants there to be something, it would be something a lot more than I do with Steve.” He gives Coulson a long look. “How did you know that?”

“I just see how you watch him,” Coulson says. “I know what it looks like. For what it’s worth, though, I can’t get a good read on Bruce one way or the other. He’s so contained that I wouldn’t be willing to say anything about Bruce’s sexual preferences aside from the fact that he’s bi.”

“I don’t want to talk about Bruce,” Tony says a little sharply. “I’m working on it, and it’s none of your business.”

“In a sense, it’s all of our businesses, you know,” Coulson says. “Natasha and Clint have both expressed concerns that he may remove himself from this situation if he isn’t given a good reason to stay. If anything bad happens, we’re all almost sure he’ll beat a hasty retreat, but even if nothing bad happens, we’re not sure he’ll stay. He isn’t settled. Not the way the rest of us are.”

Tony knows that, for fucks sake, he’s been working his ass off nearly every day to help Bruce settle in the small ways that Bruce allows, and it both pisses him off to know that the rest of the team has been talking about it, and also fills him with an almost sublime feeling of relief. A burden shared is a burden halved, and all that. “I’m working on it. Mostly just in my workshop, so that I’m not taking over his space. Just. Getting a little closer every day. In a month or so, I might eventually actually get to touch him. Probably just on the arm or something, but better than I’ve done so far. Though I’ve got him accustomed to Dummy being in his space. At any rate, I still don’t want to talk about Bruce. What is it you feel like you need to ask about Steve other than, I assume, my permission to make a move on my submissive.”

“Nothing, really,” Coulson says. “I’m content to find out what Steve likes from Steve, assuming he wants to go to bed with me. It’s good to know he doesn’t have pain kinks, but it’s something I would have asked him about before I tried anything with him anyway.” Coulson takes another bite of his sandwich, which is almost gone, and chews thoughtfully for a long moment. Then he asks, “Bondage?”

“No, right out of the gate,” Tony says seriously. “Before we even had our clothes off the first time.”

Coulson’s eyes narrow a little at that, and Tony laughs, because he can tell what Coulson is thinking, and he thinks the same thing.

Coulson looks at him for a moment, and then says, “How serious is he about the no bondage?”

“Right now, very serious. He’s very new, and not very steady. But given a little time, I think bondage will end up being something he gets off on pretty hard. If he ever lets me have the chance to show him.” Tony shrugs. “But he’s got pretty hard limits right now. He may grow out of some of them, he may not. I’m not worried about it right now because what we’re doing is working for him. It’s steadying him up, and that was the point. Would I like to do more? Sure, of course. He’s gorgeous, and once he got past being shy about what he likes, is absolutely lovely when he subs for me. But I’m not keeping Steve. Especially not if… Well, I’m just not. But I’ll be there for him this way for as long as he needs me to be.”

“So you have no problem with me asking him to come to bed with me?” Coulson reiterates.

“Absolutely no problem,” Tony says firmly. “I’ll ask him for you, if you want me to. Or at least let him know that you might be interested, and that if he’s interested, he should feel free. Not just with you, but with anyone on the team.”

“You might let him know he has an open dance card with the team, though when it comes to asking him, I’d rather do that myself,” Coulson says.

Tony takes the last bite of his sandwich and chases it with the last few swallows of his gin and tonic. He isn’t the least bit sleepy. He ponders the lab for a few seconds, but he isn’t working on anything that’s going to keep his mind fully occupied right now, and he’s not interested in just fucking around down there for the sake of fucking around.

“You seem restless,” Coulson says, and catches Tony’s gaze again and holds it this time. “I can make you feel less restless, if that’s something you’re interested in.” 

Tony blinks at Coulson. He couldn’t have been more surprised if Coulson had jerked his cock out of his soft cotton pajama bottoms and started stroking off right where he was sitting. It’s on the tip of his tongue to thank him, but deny that he’s restless, when he realizes that he _is_ restless.

Tony doesn’t bottom often, and he subs even less, and he isn’t confused about which one he would be doing for Coulson. It’s all there in the glitter of his gaze, which is still holding Tony’s captive, though his expression is mostly neutral.

“Why?” Tony asks after he has stared at Coulson for probably at least a minute.

“Because I need it, and you seem restless, and I’ve never seen you naked before, and I appreciate the aesthetics very much. Because you seem like you might be exactly what I need right now.” Coulson’s tone is bland, but there is something lurking behind it that doesn’t sound bland at all. It’s nothing so obvious as lust, but something much more subtle.

“Make me another drink,” Tony says, and slides his glass over to Coulson.

Coulson gets up, his own tumbler in his other hand, and retreats behind the bar.

Mostly Tony wants to think about it without the distracting glitter of Coulson’s gaze locked with his own. It has been roughly three years since he’s bottomed -- not been fucked, they are not the same thing at all, and Tony has never had a problem with being fucked by his partners -- and more like five since he’s seriously submitted to anyone. Does he want this?

He thinks hard about the expression in Coulson’s eyes, which had been entirely different than the neutral expression on Coulson’s face, and realizes that he’s hard at almost the same time that he realizes that he finds Coulson as aesthetically pleasing as Coulson had claimed to find Tony. And there’s something about it coming out like this, with everything he has, scars and arc reactor and all, that makes this feel a lot less tense than he’s felt at the idea of either bottoming or subbing for anyone since before Afghanistan. He doesn’t need to worry about how Coulson is going to react to the angry red scars or the cool blue-white glow of the arc reactor or the feel of the metal in his chest, because Coulson had been sitting here having a conversation with Tony for half an hour with all of those things on display, and he’d had plenty of time to take it in.

Coulson returns with their drinks, and Tony swallows half of his at a draught. Coulson arches his brows at him, and says, “This offer was in no way intended as an insult.”

“I didn’t think it had been for a second,” Tony says immediately. “I give you a hard time because you barely give me micro-expressions in response, and I find that fun and interesting, but I never would have thought you would have offered me anything intending it to be anything other than exactly what you said it would be.”

Coulson’s face relaxes back into neutral territory, and he takes a fairly hefty swallow of his own scotch. “Good,” is all he says.

“I just need a minute to think. It’s been a long time since I subbed for anyone, and if anyone had asked me this morning if the next person I subbed for was going to be you, I’d have laughed myself sick. I didn’t think you liked me enough to want me to sub for you, Coulson,” Tony says.

“I’ve liked you since the first time I met you. I liked you the whole time you were blowing me off while I was trying to debrief you from Afghanistan. I especially like who you’ve remade yourself into, since you became Iron Man. I hadn’t thought of you sexually one way or the other, honestly, because you flirt with anything with a pulse, but you haven’t brought anyone home with you as far as I can tell in the past three months, since we all moved in here. You could have, you’re totally capable of being discreet but I don’t think you have. And when I did think of you sexually, it was in connection with Steve, who I very much think of sexually. It just sort of segued into interest from there. I might not have mentioned it at all except that you seem restless, and I think I can settle you down.” Coulson tosses back the rest of his drink. “That said, you should by no means do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I never do,” Tony says almost absently. Then: “I’m hard to bring down. It’s not my natural setting.”

“I can take care of that for you,” Coulson says, his eyes glittering again, and doesn’t sound like he has the slightest doubt of his ability to do so at all.

Tony finishes his gin and tonic, and carefully sets the glass down precisely on top of the ring of condensation it’s already left on the top of the bar.

“I am restless,” Tony says. “I’m hard to bring down, but if you think you want to do it, I’m willing to let you try.”

Something hot and intense replaces the neutral expression on Coulson’s face, and Tony feels his belly roll over a little uneasily even as his cock jerks a little between his thighs. “I’d prefer to do this on my floor,” Coulson says. “It’s where my kit is.”

“It works for me. Steve is asleep in my bedroom,” Tony says, which isn’t precisely a lie, though it isn’t entirely the truth either. Steve is asleep in his own little bedroom which happens to have started out life as one of Tony’s walk in closets, but Coulson doesn’t need to know that.

Coulson stands up, and because Coulson is standing, Tony stands, too. He isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but it isn’t for Coulson to close this distance between them and slide a hand along the small of his back, urging him gently toward the elevator. Tony’s feet stagger into motion, as though they aren’t as sure as the rest of him that he wants to do this. Actually, the rest of him isn’t that sure, either.

But something about the way Coulson had said he could take care of Tony feeling restless is enough to keep him moving. He’s not entirely sure he wants this, but maybe he _needs_ it. Between the slow dance of getting Bruce to let him in his zen zone and taking care of Steve, maybe Tony needs someone to take care of him for a while.

Coulson slaps the down button on the elevator and since it’s already on the penthouse level, it opens up immediately. Coulson urges Tony inside and jabs the button for his floor. Some of the suites have lobbies to get through and some of them don’t; Coulson’s is one of the ones that does. When he’d assigned the floor to Coulson, he’d done it with the understanding that Coulson wouldn’t want someone stepping off the elevator and directly into his living room. Natasha’s room has a lobby, but none of the others do. Initially these suites had been designed for business guests of Stark Industries, and even with the ones taken up by the team, there are still plenty to go around.

Some of the suites had come predecorated, some had not; Coulson’s had not, but Tony has visited a couple of times to see what he’s done with the place, and had been not very surprised to find it mostly done in neutral colors with natural woods and wide, low furniture, leaving the space feeling very open. It occurs to Tony that he’s going to have to get back to the penthouse in his birthday suit when this is over, but he isn’t terribly worried about it. He doesn’t anticipate actually staying the night. If it’s been a long time since Tony has subbed for someone, it’s been practically forever since he hasn’t slept in his own bed, excepting when he’s staying in a hotel somewhere for travel. So likely, everyone will still be asleep still when Tony makes his way back upstairs.

Coulson’s hand, still steady on the small of his back, urges him down across the lobby, takes Coulson’s thumbprint scan to let them in the door, and then nudges him gently until Tony is inside. Tony’s heart is beating hard in his chest, hard but slow, and he isn’t feeling particularly worried about anything Coulson might want to do to him.

Coulson steps out in front of Tony to lead him all the way into the back bedroom of the suite, which if Tony is correct, isn’t actually the master suite on this floor but, hey, Coulson clearly has the space to use for whatever he wants to use it for. For all Tony knows, Coulson has a dungeon set up in the back bedroom. 

Coulson opens the door, and it isn’t a dungeon -- Tony can’t tell if he’s disappointed or relieved -- but is empty except for a bed, a bedside table, and a tall, wide armoire done in honey colored wood and clearly hand made. Tony glances around, notes that both the bed and the walls and ceilings have some O rings mounted on them in places, and wonders if Coulson intends to tie him up. Tony isn’t totally opposed to bondage, but it isn’t one of his biggest kinks on the receiving end.

“How do you feel about a riding crop?” Coulson asks him, voice smooth and steady, as though they’re discussing the weather.

“That would suit me fine,” Tony tells him truthfully. A riding crop is a hard enough tool that it is more likely to work than anything else short of maybe a cat or a heavy flogger.

“Do you prefer to be bound or free?” Coulson asks, still in that smooth, steady voice.

“Honestly, if it gets you off to tie me down, I don’t have a problem with it, but bondage from this side has never done a lot for helping me go down,” Tony answers matter-of-factly.

“If I put you on your knees on the bed and go at your back and ass, are you going to be able to stay up?” Coulson asks.

“Not a problem,” Tony assures him. “I’ve never lost myself enough to be unable to maintain a position I’m put in. Are you planning on fucking me? I’m clean, and I can prove it, but the paperwork is upstairs. I’m willing to take your word for it, in your case. I can’t imagine you being careless enough to catch an STD.”

Coulson chuckles deep in his chest. “I’m clean, and yes, it was one of the things I was planning to ask you for.”

Tony glances down at Coulson’s sleeping pants and sees that they’re obviously and prodigiously tented. When Coulson notices him looking, he strips them off with casual efficiency and tosses them into a corner. Coulson turns out to be bigger than expected in this way as well, not too thick to take after letting Steve fuck him earlier, but long. Of course, Steve fucking him earlier had been over very quickly. Tony isn’t even sore, though Steve is fairly well endowed as well. Not as long as Coulson, but probably about as thick. Coulson stands where he is for several long seconds, apparently just letting Tony look his fill, and Tony realizes he’d been staring and returns his gaze to Coulson’s face. 

Coulson’s lips are quirked up, pleased looking, and he turns away to open the armoire.

It’s clearly his ‘kit,’ as he had called it, and while it’s not as big as Tony’s -- he has a closet, and then some stuff elsewhere that doesn’t fit in the closet -- it’s clearly a working arsenal of sexual paraphernalia. Tony sees straps and short floggers, one long flogger, and four different crops. There are drawers built into the body of the armoire, but the things you use to hit people with are hanging from hooks on the insides of both doors. No telling what is in the drawers, and Tony doesn’t ask. Coulson slips one of the riding crops off of its hook -- a relatively hefty looking one -- and then closes the armoire without taking anything else out of it. Tony is dying to know what all Coulson has in there, of course, but if he’s going to do this, he’s not going to start out by giving Coulson shit about his ‘kit.’

“You have a safeword?” Coulson asks.

“The same once since I was seventeen, so you’re not allowed to laugh at it,” Tony says, smirking a little. “It’s Copernicus.”

“It’s appropriate,” Coulson says, and circles the bed to open the only other piece of furniture in the room, which is a bedside table. He takes out a tube of lube and sets it on top of the table, closing the drawer softly.

“Steve does the red, yellow, green version,” Tony tells him. “He doesn’t do enough to need a real word, and it’s a good way to gauge when he needs me to just slow down rather than to stop it. If we ever go much further, I’ll set him up with a proper safeword.” Tony pauses, and then hears himself ask, a little grudgingly, “Honorific?”

“Sir will do fine,” Coulson says, and Tony’s belly does another one of those unnerved flips. 

“Steve doesn’t use an honorific, just so you know. At least not yet. Though he does ask for permission to come, which is very pretty,” Tony says.

“Are you stalling?” Coulson asks.

“No, sir,” Tony says, and it’s easier to give Coulson the honorific than it feels like it should be. It’s one of those parts of subbing he always seems to fuck up. “You haven’t told me what to do yet.”

“Get on your hands and knees on the bed. Make sure you’re well braced and have got everything well balanced, because if you do go down after telling me that you won’t, I’ll be irate,” Coulson says. But he doesn’t sound irate. His voice is a low, husky rumble. “Are you quiet or loud?”

“Mostly quiet. And like I said, I don’t go down easy or fast. You’re probably going to have to work on me with that thing for a while, sir.” This time, the sir tacks itself onto the end of the sentence so easily that it’s a little unsettling.

“I’m prepared to work for it,” Coulson says, sounding unconcerned at the same time that his voice is still that pleasantly husky rumble.

Tony climbs up onto the bed on his knees, staying in the middle since Coulson hadn’t specified a side, and it’s not a very wide bed. It’s also set fairly low to the ground, which can only help the force behind Coulson’s swings.

“Anyplace I need to avoid?” Coulson asks.

“Not on my back or ass,” Tony says. “If we were talking about the front of my body, I’m not even sure how it would work. But I don’t have any scars or anything on my back that should get in the way, sir.” Now that he’s up on the bed, settling himself so that he’s braced without being to tense, Tony’s nerves start to fray a little. 

Coulson walks a circle around the bed and comes to a stop on the left side. Tony watches him looking at Tony, lets the admiration and the heat in Coulson’s gaze help to settle his nerves. “You have gorgeous skin,” Coulson says. “I can’t wait to mark it up, and if you can take what you say you can take, then all to the better for me. I don’t always get to go as hard as I want to. Clint has limits.” There are another few moments of silence, and then Coulson asks, “Just how far down do you want to go, Tony?”

It’s the first time all evening that Coulson has used his name, and it makes his belly twist in a heated and anxious knot. His cock is still hard and heavy between his thighs, and he really takes a minute to think about the question. Tony doesn’t let go like this often, but he feels pretty comfortable that Coulson is the kind of guy to be certain of what he’s seeing before asking anyone to sub for him. He isn’t sure how long he’s been feeling it, and knows that a part of it is frustrated desire for Bruce that he’s going to sublimate into this other thing, but that’s okay. There’s nowhere else for that desire to go right now, so it feels okay to let it out here.

“As far as you want to take me, sir,” Tony says finally, and only then does Coulson touch him for real, spreading his knees just a little and adjusting the angle at which he’s holding his back. Tony lets him makes these tiny adjustment to his posture, is actually a little reassured by them. It’s the same kind of thing Tony would do before he was going to do a hard session with a crop on someone. Just to make sure he knows where to hit and how the body beneath his crop is going to take the blow. His heartbeat has sped up now, though, and he’s looking forward to this and dreading it in equal measures. 

Tony is not much of a masochist, not really. He has some tendencies, as almost every sadist does, whether they admit it or not, but he’s not in it for the pain the way a true masochist would be. The way that Bruce would be, if he could ever get Bruce to let him take him down this particular path. It’s just the only way he has of getting into submissive headspace, and yes, once he starts to get there, it will get better, more soothing than painful, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s going to start out as pretty much straight pain.

Coulson says, “I’m ambidextrous,” which, for a moment, leaves Tony kind of boggled at the non sequitur. Then he continues, “Which means I can start on this side of your body and angle my blows diagonally, and then move around to the other side of you and do the same. It should leave you with an interesting pattern of welts, now, and bruises later.” Coulson’s voice is low and soothing, and Tony feels himself responding to it, loosening up, letting himself settle into the right headspace which is not subspace -- Tony doesn’t get to subspace that quickly or that easily -- but which is a good headspace in which to be open to getting into subspace from. “Do you need warming up?”

“No, sir,” Tony says. “Start hard and keep it that way.”

“I was hoping you would say that,” Coulson says, his voice abruptly laced with greed and need and all the things that Tony recognizes from when he’s on the other side of the crop.

He sees Coulson take a half step back from the corner of his eye, has a moment to hear the crop whistling through the air, and it slams into his left shoulder blade, at an angle, like Coulson had said. Tony huffs out a soft sound of pain and keeps his body loose and positioned how Coulson had placed him, and the next blow is hard enough to knock the breath out of him and burn like fire across the skin of his back. Coulson pauses, running his fingertips down the lower of the two welts Tony is sure are already forming, and makes a quiet humming sound. The next blow is harder still, and Tony sucks in a breath and lets it out slowly, breathing through the pain, letting his body feel it and turn it into what it takes to get through to his head, and Coulson hits _hard_ , he had taken Tony at his word, and by the time he’s halfway down the middle of Tony back, tears are streaming from Tony’s eyes and he’s making short, quiet grunts of pain and effort at every blow. 

It’s starting to work, though, Coulson is methodical and sets a measured pace, not slow, but not so fast that Tony can’t breathe for a second between every blow, which Coulson seems to intuit that Tony needs. He lets his head hang down loose on his neck and lets each blow from the crop rock his body a little under the force of it, and slowly, the way that it always happens for Tony, he starts to feel his mind start to ease into low gear, no thoughts clouding it up, no worries, just the methodical pace of Coulson’s rising and falling crop. As always, when it happens -- and sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes he just can’t let go -- his breath starts to come in little hitches that are not cries, Tony has never cried out under a beating, but are as close as he comes to the sound of taking pleasure in pain. Coulson’s blows are even more vicious across the cheeks of Tony’s ass, and Tony breathes in those hard, heavy little hitches and lets his mind be empty and quiet, lets his body speak for him, his hips rocking just a little, his cock still a hard weight hanging beneath him, dripping precome now onto Coulson’s pristine white sheets. By the time Coulson gets to the backs of his thighs, Tony is moaning low in his throat, the sound broken up by his hitching breaths, but unmistakably a wanting sound, and he can hear Coulson’s breathing even over his own, fast and harsh.

He’s unprepared for the pain to stop, but almost as soon as it does, Coulson is sliding cool, slick fingers down the crack of his ass, pushing in with one finger all at once, as though he recognizes that there is no need to go slowly for Tony once he’s finally reached this place. The first is quickly joined by a second, and Coulson twists his wrist and jabs viciously at Tony’s prostate, which causes him to bite down on a sound that almost wants to be a cry of pleasure. Coulson’s fingers vanish for a moment, and Tony makes a low, disappointed sound, but then they are back, three this time, and Coulson goes only a little more slowly than he had with two, just enough to make Tony rock his hips back into the thrusts of his fingers.

When Coulson removes all three of his fingers, Tony says, “Sir,” in a soft, thick voice hoarse with tears.

Coulson says, “Hush, Tony,” and Tony hushes, his mouth and his mind, and then feels the head of Coulson’s cock brushing up against his hole and moans, low and encouraging as Coulson presses into him, neither hard nor soft, but without easing into it either, one long, steady stroke that slides all the way along Tony’s prostate and makes him whine out a soft and helpless sound of need that he can’t keep back. “That’s good, Tony, that’s sweet, you can make any sound you need to now,” Coulson says, and pulls back and then thrusts back in hard, and Coulson is long, he shoves tony apart and buries himself in deep, and Tony can hear himself panting out those same helpless wanting sounds that he isn’t sure he’s ever heard himself make before, and can’t keep himself from making now, maybe just because Coulson had told him it was okay to make them. 

Coulson is just as relentless with his cock as he had been with his crop, and soon Tony’s helpless sounds are broken with tears, and he is softly and quietly amazed. He doesn’t think he’s ever cried while he was being fucked before, but it’s so good, the rough press of Coulson’s cock into his ass, the drag of the whole long length of it along his prostate, and Tony rocks back into each stroke, and because he isn’t loud himself, he can hear Coulson growling roughly every time he shoves his cock into Tony, and the harsh, fast sound of his breath over the sound of Tony’s. His hips slap across the welts on Tony’s ass with little bursts of delirious pain, and Tony would have kept fucking himself back onto Coulson’s cock except that Coulson tightens his hands on his hips, holding him still, and then presses a hand between Tony’s shoulder blades, the welts stinging wildly under the press of his palm. “That’s right, go down on your elbows,” Coulson instructs, and Tony drops down onto them and feels the difference in the angle at once. He lets out a single hoarse syllable that is supposed to be the word ‘sir’ but doesn’t make it even close to that sound, and Coulson drags his hand back down the welted skin of Tony’s back to wrap it around his hip again, and then just pounds into Tony, hard and fast and deep and with that low growl coming out almost as a snarl now, and Tony shudders, and it’s been years since he came hands free, but he’s closer now than he has been in at least two decades, but Coulson seems to know and understand, and he leans forward, hips never stuttering in their rhythm, and slides a hard hand around Tony’s cock, murmuring as he does so, “If you come before I do, you will most sincerely regret it.”

Tony’s hips jerk at the words as much as they do at the feel of Coulson’s hand around his cock, but he is down deep, where he almost never goes, and of course he wouldn’t dream of coming before Coulson is finished with his ass. He merely whines out a soft and pleading sound, and Coulson says, “God, aren’t you sweet like this,” and shoves in once more, hard, and Tony can feel Coulson’s cock jerking in his ass and lets go of his own restraint with a soft, glad cry as he spurts onto the sheets below him.

Coulson pulls out slowly, which Tony responds to with a faint sigh of regret, but then Coulson is pulling him back up to his hands on the bed again, his competent hands repositioning Tony how he wants him, and then all of it, again, from the other side of the bed, the blows a jolting agony now as they cross welts already laid down from the other direction, but it is so good Tony is almost immediately in tears, almost soundless as he hitches for breath between blows, and Tony feels something tear painlessly in his mind, at the very root of his mind, and then he is nothing but the pain and the simple truth of being to be used, and it has never been like this for him, he has never let so much of himself go, and he feels curiously light, even as Coulson repeats almost exactly what he had done from the other side, the slow and steady pace, the methodical rhythm of it driving Tony deeper and seeming to slow his mind so that it almost isn’t there at all, and when Coulson is finished with the backs of his thighs from this side, he says, “I’m going to fuck you again, Tony, can you take it for me again?” and Tony recognizes the need in his voice, has felt it himself, the kind of need where you are on the verge of taking without asking, but Coulson is asking, and there is nothing else Tony can say.

“Yes, sir,” he whispers, and is vaguely aware that Coulson has slicked himself up again before he pushes in, not slow and steady this time, but fast and frantic, shoving Tony down with a hand between his shoulder blades almost at once, and then driving into Tony with long, punishing strokes that make tears slide down his cheeks even as he’s whining, raw inside, but that is good, too, that is part of it. Tony is old enough that it usually takes him a while to recover after an orgasm as good as the first one Coulson had given him, but he can feel this one building almost as quickly, grinding in the pit of his belly and wrapped like a fist around his balls, and it’s faster this time, Coulson’s hand wrapping around him almost before Tony realizes he’s ready to come again, but he’s never had to be told things twice, and he waits, and this time instead of that one, hard shove, Coulson’s thighs, pressed up against the backs of Tony’s welted thighs and stinging like mad, start to shudder, and he loses that hard and careful rhythm and just pistons into Tony, and when he comes he bends over Tony’s back and presses his sweaty chest to Tony’s ravaged back, and Tony actually cries out in some mix of pain and needy pleasure that he has never before encountered, and when he’s sure Coulson is done, he relaxes, his come just slipping over the backs of Coulson’s fingers this time, not enough of it to spurt onto the sheets, and Coulson says, 

“Good, Tony, God that was good, you were so good under me,” in a husky, harsh voice that breaks the words apart into chunks as he tries to breathe at the same time as he tries to say them.

Tony, still gasping through his orgasm and the pain of Coulson’s sweaty chest sliding along his back, whimpers, “Thank you, sir,” in a voice that is nearly as harsh and wrecked as Coulson’s sounds.

“You can go down now, go down on your belly,” Coulson pants out, and slowly pulls himself out of Tony’s ass even as Tony is slowly obeying the command, his whole body aching with the force of the beating. He feels the wet spot under him, and doesn’t even care enough to be amused by it. Then Coulson’s hands are on his back, slick and coated with oil, and Tony isn’t sure why he’s surprised, he would have oiled any sub he had cropped this hard, but he is surprised. Tony has just as much trouble staying down as he does getting down, but Coulson’s hands on his aching back and ass and thighs keep his mind firmly offline while his body buzzes with pain and relief from pain at the same time.

“I want you to sleep here,” Coulson says. “I’ll give you clothes so you can get back to the penthouse in the morning without having to do it naked.”

Tony isn’t sure how he feels about Coulson knowing that about him, but can’t bring himself to care that much under the persuasive power of Coulson’s firmly massaging hands.

“I’ll want to oil you first thing in the morning, too, and I don’t want to have to come looking for you to do it,” Coulson tells him. “So sleep here. Alone in this bed, if you want to, or in the bed in the master suite with me. Whichever you prefer.”

“Not alone,” Tony manages to slur out, and Coulson soothes his hands down Tony’s back briefly.

“That’s fine. Just tell me you’ll stay tonight.”

“I’ll stay,” Tony agrees, and lets Coulson’s hands continue to slide across his sore body and ease away some of the sharp pain, though the deep pain is going to hang around for a few days, Tony can tell. He doesn’t mind.

He’ll have to explain to Steve in the morning, will have to make sure Steve knows that it wasn’t anything Tony hadn’t asked for, but that chore seems far distant right at the moment.

Coulson helps him up off the low bed and guides him into the master suite, which has a bed in it almost as big as Tony’s, and gentles him onto his side to lie down. Before Tony is even really aware of it, he’s drifting off to sleep with Coulson’s hand curled around his waist and most of his body curled up in the long curve of Coulson’s body, which hurts a little, but also feels wonderful at the same time. 

He hears Coulson murmur, “Thank you, Tony,” as he’s drifting, and makes a small inarticulate sound of acknowledgement which seem to be as close to words as he can get, as deeply down as he is, and then, all the restlessness having been ruthlessly driven away by Coulson’s crop and his cock, he’s asleep.


End file.
